Ape Rescue Mission Campaigns to Combat Extinction of Great Apes

Ape Rescue Mission, a fundraising initiative with a goal of raising $50,000 by the beginning of 2013, will send an undercover investigator deep in the African forests to expose illegal ape trafficking and slaughter.

LOS ANGELES - Ape Rescue Mission is a fundraising initiative developed in response to the failure of conventional conservation methods to curb the escalation of animal trafficking in Equatorial Africa. ARM will send an experienced animal cruelty investigator to join a task force that has achieved great success in using existing laws in countries such as Cameroon, Gabon, and the Congo to prosecute animal traffickers and embolden a new wave of judiciary integrity. ARM recently launched its campaign video (http://vimeo.com/49987800), which highlights a mere fraction of the disturbing cruelty inflicted daily on great apes, and explains how ARM is necessary to help put a stop to it.

ARM's mission is to raise approximately $50,000 by the beginning of 2013 in order to send an experienced animal cruelty investigator to Africa and fight cruelty to great apes. The funds will go directly toward undercover video equipment and living expenses for one person for one year, filling an open position of a well-established West African great ape nonprofit task force. This position urgently needs to be filled and is completely unfunded.

For decades, chimpanzees and gorillas of Africa's Congo Basin have been brought to the brink of extinction due to illegal poaching, trafficking and slaughter. Babies are torn from their mothers, and grisly markets of ape heads, hands and other body parts flourish in the black market. If enough funds are raised via ARM for Africa, an experienced animal cruelty investigator will travel to Africa to spend at least one year undercover in the continent's worst countries for apes, documenting and filming evidence of cruelty and illegal trafficking, and using this evidence for criminal prosecution of all offenders caught on film. The investigator would be filling an open position for a dedicated nonprofit group based in Cameroon that works tirelessly to expose cruelty to great apes and uses evidence of illegal wildlife activity to help enforce anti-trafficking, slaughter and poaching laws. The nonprofit has had numerous successes in the African countries they've targeted so far, and is looking to expand to add more people to investigate other countries, replicating already established methods, goals and outcomes.

Ape Rescue Mission will be exhibiting in this year's highly attended Green Festival in Los Angeles on November 17 and 18, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Attendees will be able to meet with supporters of the initiative and ask any questions they may have regarding funding, the core issues for apes in Africa, and any other aspect of the initiative. ARM will also be locally participating in future fundraising nights in eco-friendly restaurants such as Los Angeles' Veggie Grill late in 2012.